We have already noted—(i) being is neutral to and therefore not prejudiced by kind (ii) allows emergence of some perfect objectivity – which, as found, is a perfect framework for (knowledge of) the universe as ultimate (iii) allows (as-if) kind to emerge where useful as near representation as pragmatic fill-in for the framework – which is value perfect in realization of the ultimate.

Enhance what is already there by the following.

We begin with being rather than kind even though kinds are important and because we are ourselves, we are the ones doing the analysis, we are, as such, an essential and critical kind (but, of course, not necessarily the only essential kind, or the essential kind, as, for example, Heidegger thought to be the case, at least seemingly in Being and Time), to posit kinds is limiting, and therefore we want being to stand above kinds, but also to allow kinds—which, thus, requires being to be neutral. And in doing so, we lay a foundation for an ultimate framework, which includes our kind of being as a case, of course, an important case – at least to us.

To avoid seeing being as a kind, in the beginning

1. Being is existence. Though being is not a kind, it will incorporate any kinds or as-if kinds that emerge. Thus being is not but includes a range of kinds.

Neutrality further suggests the following umbrellas

2. Being admits both being(s) and nonbeing(s)—in that (i) the concept allows nonexistent beings without paradox or need for further analysis (which further, may lack manifestation in some worlds but not in the entire universe) (ii) existence and nonexistence of the void, since it is not manifest (therefore the number of voids is without significance—it can be zero or limitlessly many and it can obtain anywhere and everywhere) and, further, it is not merely positively creative it is also negatively creative in that it can destroy any and all beings(s).

3. From the concept of being as concept – intended reference, the concrete-abstract continuum is ‘one’ under being.

4. The range from neutral to interactive to experiential beings that find being to be intelligible (including Heidegger’s Dasein) falls under being.

5. Knowledge as objective via representation as well as non-objective—i.e., there are cases of objectivity via abstraction even though knowing and being are interwoven but also cases in which phenomenality is not transcended. In effect, then, there are cases of independence (objectivity) and interwovenness (phenomenality) of knowledge.

6. Knowledge as independent of and interwoven with beings.

7. Knowledge as having both system and idiosyncrasy.

8. Knowledge as culture transcendent and relative

9. Value (e.g., ethics), knowledge of things, and beings as distinct and as interwoven.

10. Observers as outside being and immersed.

The role of knowledge and experientiality for being

About what kind of being are we talking

1. Being that can ask these questions and ‘higher’.

2. Thus not all being unless we can make sense of all being have the appropriate characteristics in some sense.

The role of knowledge and experientiality for being

Though the claim is to be made that knowledge-in-some-sense is fundamental to being, it is not claimed that human knowledge as commonly understood is essential to all being (as defined here).

However, potential relationship and potential primitive experientiality is fundamental to being. Further, many thinkers throughout the history of human ideas have argued that, human knowing, including knowing and intelligibility of the universe and being in general, that is being as we have defined, it, including our being and kind of being, is fundamental to our being and kind of being, and a characteristic, a main characteristic thereof, which raises questions.

1. Is intelligibility and knowing essential to significant being? And perhaps the answer is yes, though possibly not quite, which raises the question of whether there are higher kinds of being with higher kinds of significance. And in answer, the options are

A. There are no higher kinds.

B. There are higher kinds, but no higher kind of significance.

C. There are higher kinds with higher kinds of significance.

And, perhaps,

2. The knowing of the higher kinds is greater in extent and quality than human intelligibility of the universe and knowing, including first, that knowing and being, for that kind are identical. And second, that those kinds know things at a glance which we labor and reason to know. In particular, their being is the whole universe, as is their knowing and perception.

A. Some of the assertions made a above without qualification should be qualified, perhaps qualified, as possible, or maybe, or to receive further consideration, including amplification or other modification.

B. Further addendum, some of the claims above, such as that primitive potential experientiality is fundamental to all being are somewhat reasonable on an open metaphysics, but are necessary and follow from real metaphysics as developed in this narrative.

C. Yet another addendum, the kind of being that has intelligibility or being in itself and the universe, is, I think, what Heidegger calls essential being, and definitely what he calls Dasein.

God and religion

On ‘God’

So then – What is the meaning of “ God”? I written on this elsewhere where I have explained a meaning and why it is a robust meaning– with proof and doubt. So, I shall not go into it again here at this time. But I shall say that whatever God is, it is not just a state, but it is also a process which is all around us but more – we are part of it all proceeding toward peak Being which we shall all become, and, were we to see with our limited knowing, which we already are. And, whatever the concept of God is, it is not ‘supernatural’. It is not of ‘another plane’. In the idea of which I write, there are no planes, there are no substances, such as matter or mind or spirit, everything falls under the idea of being or existence, which trivial do it may sound, is found to be immensely, powerful (there are, of course, what we find to be the known in the unknown). It is experiential in process with two sides, which may be labeled the receptive and the mental or subjective, and the material or objective, which are in other words, respectively “the experience of“ and “the experienced“ which are related by or part of (the) experience (itself). Naturally, this entails that death, while it must be real, is not absolute. That is, upon death something like the following happens – there is a diffusion into background being (existence), from which we emerge again (remember that in non-existence, an eternity, and a moment are the same), and though we may not experience knowledge of and relations among the emergents (which include all human beings), we may conceive those relationships, and conceivably see them through meditation and experience them by putting meditation into practice, they are experienced by us in our higher states which include the peak states. These thoughts are not entirely new, and the closest writing of which I am aware is the Advaita (non-dual) Vedanta, which is rich in intuition and insight, but lacking, improvement, proof, equivocation, and doubt (that is, that doubt which may make us weak, but may also give us strength).

Given the forgoing thoughts, and various connotations of the word, God, as the creator, as remote, as punishing as rewarding, as merciful as cruel as the Trinity as the unity and so on, perhaps we ought not to use that word at all. The word ‘Brahman’ (not Brahma of the (Hindu Trinity) of Indian philosophy might be closer, but that philosophy also uses the word, ‘ that’, as in the phrase ‘ thou art that’, which may be less susceptible to corruption from common connotations.

What religion is

Introduction

Given a capacity for (categorial) knowledge, is there anything beyond what we claim to know from experience and science?

Let us understand science as knowledge possessed by beings capable of fact, hypothesis, inference (and analysis of inference), and tentative acceptance of hypotheses when observation and inference agree.

It is consistent with such knowledge that there is a limitless beyond (in so saying, it is not implied that there is a beyond at all)—

1. Materially.

2. Existentially.

Therefore a search for such knowledge is not a priori worthless and may be of great worth. How may such a search be conducted?

1. A standard approach of direct establishment of fact.

2. Establishment and application of reason.

However, while

1. Conservatism in knowledge and knowing may lead us to think that the methodologies are (relatively) complete,

2. Liberalism suggests that we should at least be open to rethinking and revising the methodologies and that the revisions may include enhancements.

What lies beyond received knowledge – 1. Method

1. Received religion—may have rational elements but usually has essentially speculative and often dogmatic elements that require ‘faith’. While faith and other aspects of received religion may be useful, the speculation and dogma cannot be considered to be knowledge.

2. Science (experience is implicit)—which would be a continuation of science as we know it with openness to evolution of methodology.

3. Metaphysics. While some metaphysics is essentially speculative (and therefore not of particular interest here), rational metaphysics may be of two kinds

a. Scientific, in which the approach is that of science, but the difference is in subject matter.

b. Rational in which we seek at least one of

i. Enhanced methodology.

ii. Critique and re-application of existing methodology.

How is this possible? Whereas, under the umbrella of science, which emphasizes a ‘bottom-up’ approach and therefore the thought that we do not (and perhaps cannot) know everything, reflecting on that thought, we observe that while we do not know all detail, we can know something about everything, particularly, that (a) there is something (b) there is everything (perhaps over all extension-duration).

Further, as shown in TWB, such knowledge, appropriately managed, is and may be immensely potent.

What lies beyond received knowledge – 2. Content

1. The universe is the realization of possibility in its greatest sense.

2. As seen in TWB, the implications for human knowledge, being, and destiny are immense.

3. While the cosmological possibilities are limitless in range, there are robust possibilities (also limitless), in which we are part of and identical to conceptually (and extensionally) limitless being, which has peak and dissolved phases.

Is there a need for religion?

Therefore, there is no ‘logical’ need for religion.

However, there is a place for accounts of being and destiny that have meaning beyond the mere secular.

While traditional religions are not advocated here, they may answer to this need in some ways and some measure.

What is religion?

I shall not define religion. Rather, I advocate an activity which is “all being in pursuit of highest being”.

On meditation in action

Meditation in action will mean

1. Carrying the gain from meditation into daily and general affairs. The kind of meditation include

· Shamatha or calming meditation

· Vipasana or analytic and insight meditation.

· Yoga as integrated physical and meditative practice.

2. Meditating while in daily and general affairs… among other things

· Mind / no – mind (in balance)

· Short breaks for meditation and yoga (see item #1)

· …

The Psychology of Worldview or Gestalt Transformation

1. Worldviews tend to be stable and more to less real. Stability – equilibrium – is maintained by

a. Human psychology (investigate psychologies, e.g., ‘classic’ and five-factor), function and dysfunction

b. Experience (‘normal’ and trauma)

c. Culture (cult v. open), and

d. Community.

2. Dynamics of change—factors may include

a. Disturbance of equilibrium,

b. Incorporation of what is valid in the old,

c. Expansion or contraction, and

d. Sustained by (new) community.

Language

On language

If you ask the question, what is language, the answer often comes in the form – it is a certain kind of symbolic expression and communication. Now, this may be an effective conception because it identifies non-rudimentary language as specifically human and therefore not just superficially definite. But is that the best conception for the meaning of ‘language’. So, we must then ask what meaning is. And it then follows that the original conception of language is not necessarily the best conception. It is not necessarily a matter of right and wrong. It's a matter of what is the best conception in terms of getting the best understanding of the world, assuming understanding is what it's all about. So then the question becomes, is art a part of that new conception? Is facial expression and body-language a part of that new conception? Call the new conception ‘language’ or something else—representation, communication, and so on.

On word meaning

The words in the English language are not adequate to all the meanings that English speakers have spoken or written about (also note that even common words, including the copulas, do not have the definite meaning in use and application as we often think they do, and as generations of schoolboys, stern schoolmasters, and pompous linguistic conservatives think they do). How is this possible – that is how can one speak of meanings for which there are no words? We speak about them in groups, of words, phrases, and sentences, sometimes literally and sometimes otherwise for example metaphorically and poetically (there are devices for introducing entirely new words, into which we shall not go here). So, certainly there are not English words for all the meanings in the world (and given human limitation, this is likely true, even if we consider all languages take it together). What is meaning anyway – that is a an issue to be spoken of in another place (do we have defined meanings and grammars, there is no proof that they are adequate to all meanings, even though we sometimes think they might be). But when we speak, we tend to be limited to the words of the language, therefore when we conceive, uncommon meaning, we must use phrases, or for convenience, use new, or common words for the variant meanings. And if you think this is advanced or retarded, it may be, but it is remarkable that the Navajo speakers, advanced, or otherwise, when they encountered and negotiated with Western civilization moving westward, they would begin with precise definitions. Some western writers have remarked upon this with admiration.

Something rather than nothing

Why there is something rather than nothing has been called the fundamental problem of metaphysics--but why (i) it resolves an existential mystery (ii) it solves a 'material' problem and the solution may serve as ground for much more--philosophical, metaphysical, scientific.

But is "something rather than nothing" the fundamental problem? Or is it "why is there awareness of things rather than just things and / or nothing?" and may it be the case (i) that while there may be cosmoses without consciousness / awareness, the universe must have consciousness (ii) without consciousness the universe would have no significance (iii) it is in consciousness that the universe and consciousness-free cosmoses have significance (iii) there is no consciousness or being that cannot be known at all.

On dual doubt

Consider two views

· The first conservative, the view that common experience, including science is what we know so far and though there may be something beyond it is essentially – in kind – what we already know – perhaps with a few wrinkles such as the Multiverse.

· The second, open, which I will not call liberal, the view that there is a beyond that the beyond is not merely beyond in remote space and time, but also within at levels below the level of experience and the instruments and theories of physics, and also beyond in terms of the idea of being– being as what there is and is not merely the physical, but may include the mental or experiential, but is not specified or limited in terms of kinds. This open view is a view which includes the conservative view within it as truth, but not the whole truth, is the consistent view at all possibilities – in the greatest sense of possibility – are realized in the universe.

Now, which of these two views should we adopt? The conservative doubts the open while the open supports the conservative as part of the truth but doubts it as the entire truth.

And this attitude of conservatism is fairly common, even amongst those who would be open because even the open are influenced by the carefulness of the every day, and perhaps too much influenced because it shuts us down to what lies beyond the everyday even that everyday which goes up to the Multiverse.

Therefore, we should perhaps have doubt in both directions. On the other hand if we have doubt in both directions, should we not also have certainty in both directions. Perhaps. But that would be paradoxical, would it not?

As an aside it suggests the idea of dialetheia, which is the idea of holding the truth and it’s contradiction in mind at the same time not because there are true contradictions in the world the world is, the world cannot contradict itself, but has an attitude to maintain in the face of incomplete knowledge. Now, you might say why not just doubt? And the answer is it’s not only about knowledge, but what is that attitude which makes us and our future the greatest.

Thus, generally speaking, dual doubt ought to be advocated for (except in cases where there are specific reasons against it).

My view is the open view advocated above. And I hold that view because (i) it is consistent with experience and reason and (ii) there is a proof for it. Therefore, it is at least a strong view. It is also a view which reveals to us our own infinitude and destiny, the details of which I have written about elsewhere.

Politics and economics for The Way of Being

The world as one of bounty and scarcity, of crisis and opportunity is occasion for

1. A whole world approach to alleviating crisis.

2. A politics of opportunity.

3. Positive economics of negative growth.

4. Economics of bounty (as opposed to austerity or ‘conservative’ economics).

5. Enhanced political will in light of the above.

6. Considerations of economic and political arrangement in light of the above—which will include considerations of all classes of people.